The Systems
Change L.A.B.
A civic innovation program where youth vision becomes city strategy — and every young person can say: my idea is in the city's plan.
Express Interest as a Funder"Youth are not the leaders of tomorrow — they are essential contributors today. The Systems Change L.A.B. is where that principle becomes civic infrastructure."
"The best way to predict the future is to design it."— Buckminster Fuller
Communities need more than support.
They need agency.
We are living through an extraordinary moment. Economic uncertainty, school safety concerns, and a generation of young people who feel excluded from the decisions shaping their future.
- Youth mental health, civic disengagement, and community fragmentation are interconnected — and require integrated solutions
- Cities need actionable roadmaps grounded in lived community insight, not top-down planning
- Intergenerational collaboration builds the trust that systems change requires
- Universities can activate their civic mission through real, measurable outcomes
- Local Action Blueprints give cities a concrete, community-sourced tool — produced by the people who will inherit the future
Heal. Dream. Build. Launch.
Every cycle follows the same disciplined sequence — beginning with safety and ending with a real deliverable in the hands of city leadership.
Trauma-informed practice from the start. Every participant feels safe, heard, and supported before we ask them to build anything. Healing and civic participation are treated as the same work.
Youth explore real community challenges and imagine bold solutions. Connected to the UN SDGs and grounded in local priorities defined by the community.
Ideas take shape through collaboration with mentors and community stakeholders. Participants develop applied skills: stakeholder mapping, business modeling, feasibility testing.
Youth present a Local Action Blueprint to city leadership at a public civic showcase. Every child can say: my idea is in the city's plan.
An Intergenerational Team
No one works in isolation. Every role is real, every voice shapes the outcome.
Imagine, design, and prototype real solutions for the future of their city. Their ideas are the foundation of the Local Action Blueprint — not decorative input.
High school leaders build real organizational capacity by helping recruit, plan, and coordinate the program before it launches. Leadership through doing.
College-age fellows from partner universities — including Colorado School of Mines — facilitate, conduct stakeholder interviews, and translate youth ideas into civic proposals presented to community leaders.
Proof of concept.
Blueprint for scale.
Golden, Colorado is the founding pilot city — running June through August 2026 with 24–42 youth participants, Colorado School of Mines fellows, and cross-sector community mentors.
What works here informs what scales everywhere.
National League of Cities board member. Championing this work and committed to sharing it as a scalable model with cities nationwide — at a moment when communities are hungry for grounded, local leadership.
Real Deliverables. Not Reports. Infrastructure.
A structured proposal outlining youth-generated ideas, feasibility analysis, stakeholder insights, and implementation pathways — delivered directly to city leadership at a public showcase.
Full documentation: photos, interviews, engagement metrics, and lessons learned. Cities can build on the work, share it publicly, or use it to replicate the model year after year.
"If we don't have the future in the room when we're designing the future, what are we doing?"— Heidi Cuppari, Co-Founder & Steward, Dream Tank
Express Interest
as a Funder
The Golden pilot is being co-funded across sectors intentionally. Early funders are seeding something much larger than one summer program.
Or reach Heidi directly: heidi@dreamtank.co · +1 917-699-8351
